Happening's

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Diana West in my view has become one of the best commentators of the cultural situation of the West and the cultural war beung waged by radical Muslims. And, I add, the rapid surrender by the so-called elites in Europe and slower, but just as surely, by the those in the US.

She reminds me of Ann Coulter of years ago before Coulter decided shock was more important than substance.

Here is a portion of an interview. It is well worth clicking on and reading all.

Lopez: How are “dhimmi life under Islam” and “PC life in a multicultural world” similar?

West: For me, this pairing was something of a “eureka” moment in the writing of the book.

I would describe PC life in a multiculti world as being marked in part by self-censorship based in fear — fear of professional failure, opprobrium or social ostracism. I would also describe this same self-censorship as a form of childishness. During one lecture on The Death of the Grown-Up, I took a question from a man who wondered, in a rather agitated way, if I were actually saying that multiculturalism is juvenile. I hadn’t phrased things that way, but, on quick reflection, I told him that, yes, that was indeed what I was saying. The fact is, buying into multiculturalism — the outlook that sees all cultures as being of equal value (except the West, which is essentially vile) — requires us to repress our faculties of logic, and this in itself is an infantilizing act. I mean, it’s patently illogical to accept and teach our children the notion that a culture that has brought liberty and penicillin to the masses is of no greater value than others that haven’t. In accepting the multicultural worldview, we deceive ourselves into inhabiting a world of pretend where certain truths are out of bounds and remain unspoken — even verboten....

Such a fact is no small matter. It’s not for nothing that Plato taught us to “mark the music” to understand an individual or his society. After all, people who hum Berlin or Arlen or Gershwin think they want to fall in love; people who hum (hum?) Motley Crue or the Ying Yang Twins think they want to have sex. People who listen to Mel Torme (Nat Cole, Bing Crosby, or Ella Fitzgerald) don’t want to pierce their tongues; people who listen to Eminem (Alanis Morisette, Kurt Cobain, or Public Enemy) don’t want to pin on an orchid corsage. If the American popular song could idealize romantic love to a fault, rock ‘n’ roll degrades physical couplings to new lows — destroying not just the language of love and romance, but also the meaning of love and romance. And, I would sadly add, our capacity to experience both. The fact is, between a world in which romantic love is the ideal and a world where non-marital sex is the goal lies a vast cultural chasm. And not simply in terms of aesthetics. There are salient differences between a civilization that sings of romantic love and marriage (“Have You Met Miss Jones?”), and a civilization that sings of lust and one-night stands (“I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”). More than just the time has changed between 1937, when George and Ira Gershwin’s “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” was a hit: We may never, never meet again On the bumpy road to love…and 1987, when George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex” was a hit:

Don’t you think it’s time you had sex with meSex with meSex with me.

The changing of the cultural guard that took place in between tells us a lot about the death of the grown-up.

My thumb hurts. That's what I get for having to power wash the drive and garage doors to get rid of all that green mold caused by all that hot weather last winter and spring.... NOT!

Anyway, BION holding the sprayer on a 2600 PSI washer has hurt my thumb. Durn you Algore, where were you when I needed you??

You know, the earth hasn't become warmer in 10 years yet NewsPeak acts like they have never heard of that fact...Come to think of it, if Algore didn't tell them, and we know he didn't... then they don't know...

It's almost a point of pride with climatologists. Whenever someplace is hit with a heat wave, drought, killer storm or other extreme weather, scientists trip over themselves to absolve global warming. No particular weather event, goes the mantra, can be blamed on something so general. Extreme weather occurred before humans began loading up the atmosphere with heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. So this storm or that heat wave could be the result of the same natural forces that prevailed 100 years ago—random movements of air masses, unlucky confluences of high- and low-pressure systems—rather than global warming.

Now let me see... they are wise and great when saying what Sharon wants, but Dodos when they don't. Okay, so much for balance... And don't you just love this...

Extreme weather occurred before humans began loading up the atmosphere with heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

Uh Sharon, what happened to all that carbon dioxide the last ten years?? Last winter?

What did it do? Run and hide in a cave??? We needed it!

Well, here is the answer.

"We can look at climate-model simulations and likely attribute [specific extreme weather] to human activity," says Gerry Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Yessir. Models, simulations and likely. Three words that just give me a lot of confidence that these people know what they are doing. I mean it just sounds so.... scientific....

Michael Crichton, whose intelligence is largely disregarded because he has made a ton of money writing science fiction as opposed to science fantasy explained it all over five years ago.

Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation:

N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL

Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live.

This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.

As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science.

The problem is that 99% of the ardent believers in the nonsense that is GW never had Algebra or even General Science. So they are incapable of understanding even the oh so simple explanation that Crichton gives out.

I repeat.

"Yessir. Models, simulations and likely." Three words that just give me a lot of confidence that these people know what they are doing. I mean it just sounds so.... scientific...."

And then Sharon lectures:

In a warmer world, air holds more water vapor, so when cloud conditions are right for that vapor to form droplets, more precipitation falls.

Well, assuming there is a source of water vapor... true. But that "conditions" she speaks of is a cold front. Now a funny thing happens. The amount of water that condenses out when warm air meets a cooler object depends on the temperature of the cooler object. A mild cold front causes X amount. A strong cold front causes X x 10.

Check your air conditioner. The cooler you set it the more water it produces.

In other words the warm air is the tank, but the spigot is the cooler air.

Now, if the globe is getting warmer, where did that cold air come from?

On the other hand, if the globe is getting cooler.....and we had a record cold winter and spring....

An American war deserter could have a valid claim for refugee status in Canada, the Federal Court ruled on Friday.

In a decision that may have an impact on dozens of refugee claimants in Canada, Federal Court Justice Robert Barnes said Canada's refugee board erred by rejecting the asylum bid of Joshua Key. He ordered that a new panel reconsider the application.

Where Muslims object, officers will be obliged to use sniffer dogs only in exceptional cases. Where dogs are used, they will have to wear bootees with rubber soles. "We are trying to ensure that police forces are aware of sensitivities that people can have with the dogs to make sure they are not going against any religious or cultural element within people's homes. It is being addressed and forces are working towards doing it," Acpo said.

Problems faced by the use of sniffer dogs were highlighted last week when Tayside police were forced to apologise for a crime prevention poster featuring a german shepherd puppy, in response to a complaint by a Muslim councillor. [ed: why does the Times think police are forced to apologize when a local politician complains?]

Honestly. I couldn't make stuff like this up.

And keep remembering, dear chums, Europe is like the canary in the coal mine for the US!